The company says the deal marks the end of an era for the Howard Group, which purchased the site in 1997.

The group was instrumental in achieving planning approval for a 75,000 sq ft superstore on the site before selling a large part of the centre to Tesco in 2007.

Simon Messervy, property services director at Howard Group, said: “The sale of our remaining assets at the Werrington Centre signals the successful delivery of a key part of our strategy to dispose of non-core assets to release capital to redeploy elsewhere.”

The company says the sale completes the strategic repositioning of the group’s property portfolio.

Over the next five years, the group will concentrate its efforts on securing larger and geographically targeted quality investments and development opportunities in Cambridge, the wider region and down into London.